Japan Is Launching a Probe to Collect the First-Ever Samples From a Martian Moon

Japan’s MMX mission will launch a 4,480 kg spacecraft that will travel to Mars for one year, orbit the planet for three years, and return at least 10 g of Phobos material to Earth by 2031. It will discard outbound and exploration modules, use autonomous navigation to land on Phobos’s 11 km-radius surface, deploy the IDEFIX rover for site scouting, and collect samples with a robotic arm.